Challenges

During prime harvesting season, existing infrastructure capacity is often not available, requiring new infrastructure to be built or identified in the community.

Stakeholder Actions

Nonprofits and social entrepreneurs can work with farmers and manufacturers in food-producing regions to find excess processing capacity to handle crop surpluses during prime harvesting months, and collaborate with businesses to process donated food.

Foundations and impact investors can provide low-cost capital for investment in additional processing line capacity.

The USDA could expand its grant and loan programs to help farmers and entrepreneurs invest in their own processing capabilities.

Examples & Resources

The Alameda Kitchen, utilizing an available kitchen at the Alameda Point Collaborative, transforms fruits and vegetables that would otherwise be wasted into affordable food products and meals for low-income populations.

While the Roadmap focused on more mature nonprofit efforts to preserve the lifespan of donated food through processing, several social enterprises have emerged recently to sell value-added product from food waste at a profit. These include Barnana (snack bites from bananas rejected for export/import), Misfit Juicery (a juice company repurposing wasted food), and MM Local Foods (which buys seconds from farmers and makes value-added products to sell).